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Have humans created/invented something perfect?

Posted on: April 11, 2011 - 9:06am

luca

Posts: 400

Joined: 2011-02-21

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Have humans created/invented something perfect?

In the debates I had (not here at rrs) this issue has been presented quite a few times: one of the argument of theists was that men never created and are incapable of creating perfection, so, in some way, "atheists are wrong". I know that past events don't strictly define what could happen in the future, but the question remains.

Probably it should be divided in two parts:
1) How to define "creation" (as in "something from nothing" or in "creative")
2) What could be perfect (I mean, logic comes from people, it's abstract and without meaning and perfect, right?)

Its seems to be in the eye of the beholder. I can "refer" to something as perfect, but in what sense. Acting perfect, Looking perfect, tasting perfect.....get my drift.....

Thoughts, music, art.....all appeal to the individual, do perfection can be debated and disrciminated, like the old saying goes....."ones man's trash, another man's treasure...."

Can anything truly exists without flaws?

Xtrians would say that perfection would be God, and his Son Jesus, because they are without sin.......being without sin is the "perfect" in question in that rite.

But that can't be true because babies are born without ever committing a sin.......so what does that imply?

Creation seems to be the practical application of thought and the power to shape mass and energy repsectively according to one's will. However, this implies that in order for creation to exist, there is the never ending cycle of what created God....and what came before God....and so on. Creationists from the very begginning negate their own belief by saying...." I believe in creation, but the god I believe in was always just there".........Logical Fallacy.

We simply just do not know.....

Thanks for making me think, hope any of this rambling made sense to you.

mr. O

"Whoever feels predestined to see and not to believe will find all believers too noisy and pushy: he guards against them."

A flaw, or lack of 'perfection', is only meaningful in reference to some standard.

It is meaningless to describe something as 'perfect' in isolation.

The obsession with 'the Perfect' is a problem with much philosophy, including that of poor confused Plato.

Ok so man created whiskey first then refined it to perfection as scotch.Then he tried rye whiskey and said that every thing is perfectly what it is. Line all three up bartender. That is a very good point that I really haven't spent time thinking about. It points to 2 thousand years of unresolved philosophy and the question why? In classical Greek and in the bible the word for perfection is teleon. It really meant finished. We get another philosophy from it called teleology. A perfect trip is one where you arrive at your destination whether you had two flat tires or not.

"You can't write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say sometimes, so you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whip cream."--Frank Zappa

A flaw, or lack of 'perfection', is only meaningful in reference to some standard.

It is meaningless to describe something as 'perfect' in isolation.

The obsession with 'the Perfect' is a problem with much philosophy, including that of poor confused Plato.

Even the concept of 'perfection' is itself imperfect, for the reasons you lay out here.

I maintain that we have not a single example of anything that is perfectly perfect.

One question to ask the theist is: Perfect in what way? If you really think about it (try this), for any example of being perfect in X way, you can always come up with a way in which being perfect in X automatically makes it imperfect in Y way. Perfectly enormous is too big to fit in my pocket, so it's imperfectly small.

To be 'perfect' in some way is to lack any flaw in that way. To be perfectly perfect would be to lack any flaws in any way at all. But this is logically impossible, because different 'ways of being' are directly contradictory to each other.

Since it is impossible to be perfectly perfect, then the concept of 'perfection' itself lacks the ability to specify itself perfectly, and so is imperfect.

The kind of perfection theists seek is not possible, and has never once been observed. Their 'god' remains an imperfect human conception.

In the debates I had (not here at rrs) this issue has been presented quite a few times: one of the argument of theists was that men never created and are incapable of creating perfection, so, in some way, "atheists are wrong". I know that past events don't strictly define what could happen in the future, but the question remains. Probably it should be divided in two parts: 1) How to define "creation" (as in "something from nothing" or in "creative&quot 2) What could be perfect (I mean, logic comes from people, it's abstract and without meaning and perfect, right?) Thoughts?

In what way are atheist's wrong?

I can imagine a "perfect blowjob" BUT that would only be a POV not a measurable reality.

Dawkings rightfully traces our current global mess of seeking perfection to Plato. Not that ideas of perfection didn't exist before. But Greek culture was and Plato were the first to popularize such questioning. The problem wasn't questioning, but THE WAY one verifies what one is questioning. Plato wrongfully thought that if you just thought about it you could find it.

The fact is in reality there is no such thing. SCIENCE even verifies this in entropy and thermodynamics .

I am not sure what you are getting at here. You don't have to imagine the "perfect" to imagine the absurd.

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."ObamaCheck out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under BrianJames Rational Poet also on twitter under Brianrrs37

There are categories of ideas which we can conceive of only by implication, via other 'ideas', and 'Perfect' would be one of those, I think. The other idea being the idea of exact correspondence to whatever a thing is supposed to be a 'perfect' instance of.

Another would be 'infinite', which we can imagine directly even less than 'perfection'.

I can realistically approximate in my head the idea of a 'perfect' circle, ie with all parts of the circumference being equidistant from the center, the limitation there being that I cannot really conceive of a true geometric 'point'. Or for that matter, a geometric line.

Well, the most perfect thing in the world is the 6L6 vacuum tube, which is made all the more perfect by the existence of the also perfect 12AX7 vacuum tube. Those and Balvenie double wood (thanks for that TG, I might have missed the implication otherwise).

However, that brings up the question of what we even mean by perfect. If something can be “most perfect” then can some change bring it to even greater perfection? If so, then how was it perfect before? Obviously, 6L6's are better when they are matched for a single DC voltage. Or not. Some people go out of their way to run a mismatched pair because it forces an otherwise class A amp to run in class B.

And yes, I am being deliberately obtuse. Still, perfection would have to be defined in some measurable way in order to even make a claim. Even if you had that to work with, how could you be sure that something was not imperfect but in a way that is below the threshold of being measurably imperfect?

Well, the most perfect thing in the world is the 6L6 vacuum tube, which is made all the more perfect by the existence of the also perfect 12AX7 vacuum tube. Those and Balvenie double wood (thanks for that TG, I might have missed the implication otherwise).

However, that brings up the question of what we even mean by perfect. If something can be “most perfect” then can some change bring it to even greater perfection? If so, then how was it perfect before? Obviously, 6L6's are better when they are matched for a single DC voltage. Or not. Some people go out of their way to run a mismatched pair because it forces an otherwise class A amp to run in class B.

And yes, I am being deliberately obtuse. Still, perfection would have to be defined in some measurable way in order to even make a claim. Even if you had that to work with, how could you be sure that something was not imperfect but in a way that is below the threshold of being measurably imperfect?

Dude you know your stuff on amplifiers. I do not have the knowledge I should on amps but that sure sounds sweet. All I have at home is an old Traynor with four tens and it has not been cut on in a while unfortunately.

I think she is wanting a 12AX7 from the way she sometimes whines. There were some Russian tubes that were sought after but I don't remember what they were called. The Big Muff Pi was originally Russsian parts made and talk about the most perfect distortion.PS turn it to 11

"You can't write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say sometimes, so you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whip cream."--Frank Zappa

Well, the most perfect thing in the world is the 6L6 vacuum tube, which is made all the more perfect by the existence of the also perfect 12AX7 vacuum tube. Those and Balvenie double wood (thanks for that TG, I might have missed the implication otherwise).

However, that brings up the question of what we even mean by perfect. If something can be “most perfect” then can some change bring it to even greater perfection? If so, then how was it perfect before? Obviously, 6L6's are better when they are matched for a single DC voltage. Or not. Some people go out of their way to run a mismatched pair because it forces an otherwise class A amp to run in class B.

And yes, I am being deliberately obtuse.

Of course you are.

Everyone who's in the 'know', knows that the EL 34 is better than the 6L6, and some will argue that the KT 88 is better than either...

I keep asking myself " Are they just playin' stupid, or are they just plain stupid?..."

"To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy" : David Brooks

" Only on the subject of God can smart people still imagine that they reap the fruits of human intelligence even as they plow them under." : Sam Harris

Well, the most perfect thing in the world is the 6L6 vacuum tube, which is made all the more perfect by the existence of the also perfect 12AX7 vacuum tube. Those and Balvenie double wood (thanks for that TG, I might have missed the implication otherwise).

However, that brings up the question of what we even mean by perfect. If something can be “most perfect” then can some change bring it to even greater perfection? If so, then how was it perfect before? Obviously, 6L6's are better when they are matched for a single DC voltage. Or not. Some people go out of their way to run a mismatched pair because it forces an otherwise class A amp to run in class B.

And yes, I am being deliberately obtuse.

Of course you are.

Everyone who's in the 'know', knows that the EL 34 is better than the 6L6, and some will argue that the KT 88 is better than either...

DAMN IT is there no end of debating. Must we even bring it into the sacred Halls of Gear Worship. I kinda go with Buddy Guy and B.B. King (may his name be honored) . Guy last I saw was using CyberTwin. I forget what B.B. uses but has preferred the solid state sound

"You can't write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say sometimes, so you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whip cream."--Frank Zappa

Ah Tommy, try the Sovtek brand for tubes. The newer stuff is hit or miss for quality and you may have to go through a few of them to get the right match. If you get a good deal on the NOS stuff, grab it while you can as they were military graded.

Off topic but military gear often uses tubes as transistors die in a xray flash. Tubes can still work after being nuked.

Apart from that, groovetubes stuff is pricey but worthwhile if you are not playing every day. They also come with a bias number in the 1-10 range so that matching is much easier.

Past that, here is the amp part of my gear list:

Hartke 120x15 combo. It is a heavy SOB and made heavier because someone before me changed the speaker to one that is heavier than spec.

Marshall MG 30 series as the grab-and-go unit. I got lucky on that one as it happened to have an undocumented 12 inch speaker. Even the web site does not mention anything other than a 10 inch unit. Bought new, so I know that it is not a change.

Also, I have one of the old brown faced GrooveTubes Trio preamps. I don't have the MIDI board for it though. Just the foot switch. Not that that is a huge problem.

If you are curious about matters, I would point you at “The Tube Amp Book” by Pittman Aspen, the owner of Groove Tubes. It has all the science behind tubes that you may never need unless you are trying to build your own gear. It also has the schematics for a couple of hundred specific amps.

If you ever find a deal on a silver face Fender you will really want that book as it has the instructions for restoring it to the pre-CBS black face version.

Off topic but military gear often uses tubes as transistors die in a xray flash. Tubes can still work after being nuked.

100% correct.

Tubes are also still the most linear electronic signal devices ever invented (AFAIK).

Answers in Gene Simmons wrote:

redneF wrote:

Everyone who's in the 'know', knows that the EL 34 is better than the 6L6, and some will argue that the KT 88 is better than either...

Well, if you are trying to get a Brit sound then there is no place in the world for any tube with a 6 in the number. So the EL or KT series can be perfect for that.

I was jess messin' wit ya.

There's no 'perfect' tone.

I forget the chronology, but I believe the first 100 W Marshalls were EL 34 output tubes, and later came the KT 88's, and the 6L6's came in the 800 series.

I have 3 vintage Marshall tops.

1969 JMP 100W Super Lead (Model 1959)

1978? JCM 800 Lead Series 100W (Model 1959)

1974? JMP Mk II 50 W (Model 1989?)

Only my 800 series is a 6L6 output tube. My older JMP's are EL 34's.

If I had to choose just one, it would be the '69 Super Lead.

Marshall's first amp, the JTM 45, was basically a clone of a Fender Bassman.

The legend goes that Leo Fender didn't care about sound when he commissioned his first amp designs. His 'mandate' was that an amp be designed around all the surplus tubes and transformers from WWII that were overflowing in warehouses in California. They couldn't give the stuff away. He was quoted as saying he could buy a case of tubes for 10 cents.

Answers in Gene Simmons wrote:

How do you play blues through an EL34?

Talent, Baby!

Talent!

Answers in Gene Simmons wrote:

Still, do I remember correctly that you said you are from Texas?

Lol, no I'm not from Texas.

I keep asking myself " Are they just playin' stupid, or are they just plain stupid?..."

"To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy" : David Brooks

" Only on the subject of God can smart people still imagine that they reap the fruits of human intelligence even as they plow them under." : Sam Harris

Yah, messing is where it is at. I don't think that we can ever get to perfection but I submit that we are close the perfect thread jack.

Just about!

Answers in Gene Simmons wrote:

That being said, how close is good enough?

Apparently, Aspen Pittman's 'Purple Marshall'...

A number of players have borrowed it to record with, and have begged to buy it from him, but to no avail.

Back on topic...

natural wrote:

BobSpence1 wrote:

'Perfection' exists only as a concept.

A flaw, or lack of 'perfection', is only meaningful in reference to some standard.

It is meaningless to describe something as 'perfect' in isolation.

The obsession with 'the Perfect' is a problem with much philosophy, including that of poor confused Plato.

Even the concept of 'perfection' is itself imperfect, for the reasons you lay out here.

I maintain that we have not a single example of anything that is perfectly perfect.

One question to ask the theist is: Perfect in what way? If you really think about it (try this), for any example of being perfect in X way, you can always come up with a way in which being perfect in X automatically makes it imperfect in Y way. Perfectly enormous is too big to fit in my pocket, so it's imperfectly small.

To be 'perfect' in some way is to lack any flaw in that way. To be perfectly perfect would be to lack any flaws in any way at all. But this is logically impossible, because different 'ways of being' are directly contradictory to each other.

Since it is impossible to be perfectly perfect, then the concept of 'perfection' itself lacks the ability to specify itself perfectly, and so is imperfect.

The kind of perfection theists seek is not possible, and has never once been observed. Their 'god' remains an imperfect human conception.

I made the same case for the 'unlimited' attribute for a god.

Being unlimited is not a 'positive' attribute. It's a 'dimensionless' quality.

It sounds impressive, but it's actually a negative quality, and utterly useless way to demonstrate how anything 'works'.

It's completely paradoxical, and self refuting, because it's infinitely constructive and deconstructive at the same time, or infinitely positive and negative at the same time, or infinitely small and large at the same time, infinitely weak and strong etc, etc...

Which is essentially explaining, 'n o t h i n g'.

Just rhetoric.

Pure eff'n rhetoric and hyperbole.

I keep asking myself " Are they just playin' stupid, or are they just plain stupid?..."

"To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy" : David Brooks

" Only on the subject of God can smart people still imagine that they reap the fruits of human intelligence even as they plow them under." : Sam Harris

Bipolar transistors are exponential wrt to voltage input, but typically highly linear wrt to current input.

FET's tend to be fairly linear in mA/V.

Triodes have a low-order power curve, something like v1.5, from what I recall. Tetrodes, pentodes, beam tetrodes can be more complex.

Triodes often sound better under high power than transistors and other tubes because of softer, more graceful, overload characteristics, whereas an amp that is highly linear with a sharp clipping will often sound harsher.

I designed a transistor amp with negligible distortion AND a carefully shaped soft clipping characteristic, and everyone says it sounds great. I actually needed to keep the output stage out of overload because the fancy nested feed-back loops gave it a very bad recovery from clipping behaviour which was noticeable. When I gave it the controlled voltage voltage limiting, the effect was remarkable. I could push it well into limiting, but the effect on the sound was relatively gentle. Which reinforced my idea of what made a lot of tube amps sound good, even when their power capabilities were less than a solid-state amp they were compared to.

I think that if you want it loud you could take a solid state lead distortion into a class a (it needs good pickups), but if you want it very messy try distortion a vintage cab with low frequencies (<400Hz, before the distortion) turned up!
For me the "feel" tone means +20/+30 dB in high frequencies, a little compression (absolutely not needed) or saturation, then amplify into a limiter: you can control in this way the distortion and so the richness of the tone simply with the velocity (pressure) of the notes (it's important with a setting like this to lower the high tones of the guitar, I use 3/10, and try all the pickup cfgs). But really I'm a drummer, so I play guitar just for experimenting.
Now, who's the fool that claims that tubes are the most linearestest devices? I'll show you where you have to shove you 2nd harmonic distortion! I mean, transistors are so linear they are almost ideal... where do you live? valve-landia?

Back on the tracks: the argument is very simple: "atheists are wrong" because if the "order" is always man made (like all the inventions and stuff), then we (ordered matter) "must" "come" from something superior. I'm sure there has been incalculable threads dedicated to this ugly (like in "stupid" and "fallacious") way of thinking. What follows is that man is incapable of perfection and only gods (eventually the biblical god) are. I think theists for the most part think of pragmatical perfection, but I can't say. What I was asking for was your precedent experiences with this type of discourse.

"Has "god" created anything perfect?" - "Humans and all the stuff that surrounds them" (that probably doesn't deserve a discussion)
"I like the question, but it is so vague. " - I know.
"'Perfection' exists only as a concept." - that's what i always said
"Since it is impossible to be perfectly perfect, ..." haha I don't know if you have ever read catholic dogmatics (systhematic theology), but I guarantee this is in for a laugh!
"In what way are atheist's wrong?" - hope i've explained better
"I was created by a man and a woman...." - yeah, that recalls one of the most important points: "all the things man invented come from something that was existing before"; more on this later
"Tubes are also still the most linear electronic signal devices ever invented" - hah it was you, the tubes-gurgler; but i see your prejudicies: your name in reverse is Fender, I can see through your lies...
"PS turn it to 11" - then you must own a particular brand of combos. I know only one or two that goes to 11...

"all the things man invented come from something that was existing before", which means so that order cannot be formed from non-order, or that life cannot come from non-life: this very common, I mean this should not be new to people in this forum? anyway it's stupid because to argue about that you have to define what life is, so noone goes happily thereafter.

the second point, the definition of 'perfection', has been discussed, but what i maybe did not underlined enough is point 1: man cannot create, only elohim (and their brothers) "does".

Sadly man also made forums to complain about overpower and man foolishly made chuck norris jokes and trade channel. Though I did manage to actually control trade channel for about 5 minutes once...it was fun.

hey girl, how come now you hang about here? you have work to do! this is the point:

I think that if you want it loud you could take a solid state lead distortion into a class a (it needs good pickups), but if you want it very messy try distortion a vintage cab with low frequencies (<400Hz, before the distortion) turned up!For me the "feel" tone means +20/+30 dB in high frequencies, a little compression (absolutely not needed) or saturation, then amplify into a limiter: you can control in this way the distortion and so the richness of the tone simply with the velocity (pressure) of the notes (it's important with a setting like this to lower the high tones of the guitar, I use 3/10, and try all the pickup cfgs). But really I'm a drummer, so I play guitar just for experimenting.Now, who's the fool that claims that tubes are the most linearestest devices? I'll show you where you have to shove you 2nd harmonic distortion! Smiling I mean, transistors are so linear they are almost ideal... where do you live? valve-landia?

Back on the tracks: the argument is very simple: "atheists are wrong" because if the "order" is always man made (like all the inventions and stuff), then we (ordered matter) "must" "come" from something superior. I'm sure there has been incalculable threads dedicated to this ugly (like in "stupid" and "fallacious&quot way of thinking. What follows is that man is incapable of perfection and only gods (eventually the biblical god) are. I think theists for the most part think of pragmatical perfection, but I can't say. What I was asking for was your precedent experiences with this type of discourse.

"Has "god" created anything perfect?" - "Humans and all the stuff that surrounds them" (that probably doesn't deserve a discussion)"I like the question, but it is so vague. " - I know."'Perfection' exists only as a concept." - that's what i always said"Since it is impossible to be perfectly perfect, ..." haha I don't know if you have ever read catholic dogmatics (systhematic theology), but I guarantee this is in for a laugh!"In what way are atheist's wrong?" - hope i've explained better"I was created by a man and a woman...." - yeah, that recalls one of the most important points: "all the things man invented come from something that was existing before"; more on this later"Tubes are also still the most linear electronic signal devices ever invented" - hah it was you, the tubes-gurgler; but i see your prejudicies: your name in reverse is Fender, I can see through your lies..."PS turn it to 11" - then you must own a particular brand of combos. I know only one or two that goes to 11...

"all the things man invented come from something that was existing before", which means so that order cannot be formed from non-order, or that life cannot come from non-life: this very common, I mean this should not be new to people in this forum? anyway it's stupid because to argue about that you have to define what life is, so noone goes happily thereafter.

the second point, the definition of 'perfection', has been discussed, but what i maybe did not underlined enough is point 1: man cannot create, only elohim (and their brothers) "does".

hey girl, how come now you hang about here? you have work to do! this is the point:

I think that if you want it loud you could take a solid state lead distortion into a class a (it needs good pickups), but if you want it very messy try distortion a vintage cab with low frequencies (<400Hz, before the distortion) turned up!

For me the "feel" tone means +20/+30 dB in high frequencies, a little compression (absolutely not needed) or saturation, then amplify into a limiter: you can control in this way the distortion and so the richness of the tone simply with the velocity (pressure) of the notes (it's important with a setting like this to lower the high tones of the guitar, I use 3/10, and try all the pickup cfgs). But really I'm a drummer, so I play guitar just for experimenting.

Well, that is the second time that you have posted that. I tell you what, go ahead and set that chain up. I would be curious to see what it can do.

luca wrote:

Now, who's the fool that claims that tubes are the most linearestest devices? I'll show you where you have to shove you 2nd harmonic distortion! Smiling I mean, transistors are so linear they are almost ideal... where do you live? valve-landia?

Well, that really depends on the rest of the components but in general, they are probably better than anything other than a mosfet based switching amp. However, if you build a class D amp for an instrument, don't expect it to sound like much more than laboratory sterile.

luca wrote:

"PS turn it to 11" - then you must own a particular brand of combos. I know only one or two that goes to 11...

It is a joke son. From a movie even.

That being said, many Fender combos go to 12 and some of the Peavey line goes to 13. It doesn't mean anything except that some engineer decided that that would be the range of numbers. It says little to nothing about the sound that comes from them.

BTW, it was a Marshall head that supposedly went to 11. AFAIK, they have never even made a limited edition that goes to 11. Not even for the re-release of the movie.

Well, that is the second time that you have posted that. I tell you what, go ahead and set that chain up. I would be curious to see what it can do.

I know I posted it two times, but it's because bad things happen and so people start talking on everything *not* related to the thread.
About the chain: you have to pay attention. On the first, solid state->class a (single ended), you need a biiig distortion, at least 40dB to 60dB: at that point the pickups cfg doesn't really matter anymore Smiling. For the other, bass+distortion+vintage cab, it's very important to check the lowest high-pass, because 1)you risk hearing the picking a lot & 2)some fx/heads have a high-pass on their own (often at ~200Hz), so you have to try. I actually listened this on some songs, incredible. The last, highs+saturation, is hard to do without a graphic eq. The point is equing from 0Hz/+0dB to 20KHz/+30dB, a straight line. Old strings also are useful because they are mellow.

Are you a mosfet lover? Do you *complicate* your life with mosfets?
Class D ampli are obviously not for coloring the sound. That's the great thing: generalize, dividi et impera. By the way, you can always use a valve preamp or any other effect. I've never heard how a class D sounds, but if they are so efficient and small, then welcome.

I know of the 11 thing, like I know it's just a number printed on a label. Also I've tried a peavey (and I like them). But I'm not a brand-lover: a lot of cabs use the same celestion speakers. Eq a little and you will ever need another cab.

Hey, wish me luck: I just registered on cattoliciromani.com (like to say romancatholics.com) to spread the atheist word. Countdown to the permaban: 10...9...8...